Examples:

Code Geass: In season two the Black Knights take refuge in the Chinese Embassy in Tokyo, and even claim one of the embassy's rooms as their sovereign territory. The embassy's smack dab in the middle of territory controlled by the vastly, vastly superior Brittanian military; the only reason Brittania doesn't just attack the Black Knights is because invading a foreign embassy is enough of a diplomatic faux pas that it'd probably just start another war. Bit of an unusual example, though, in that the Black Knights can apparently escape unnoticed any time they wish, but prefer to keep the Brittanians distracted by the embassy for as long as possible.

After losing the fleet that had brought his army to Egypt, Napoleon, in his typical fashion, decides to come back to France by conquering the Ottoman Empire, but before that he needs to conquer the fortified city of Acre. Napoleon fails due a combination of admiral Sidney Smith of the Royal Navy intercepting the ships that carried most of his siege artillery and munitions, Antoine de Phélippeaux (Napoleon's old enemy from military academy) supervising the building of new walls capable to resist what artillery Napoleon still has and directing the defense, and Sidney Smith resupplying Acre with food, Ottoman troops, and the guns and munitions he captured from Napoleon.

Of course, Siege is about a siege. Asgard, the city of the gods, is under siege by the Dark Avengers, H.A.M.M.E.R. and an army of superheroes of the 50 states initiative. Then The Cavalry (the good Avengers, and Patriot) shows up, but Asgard was destroyed by Sentry.

Issue 175 of Sonic the Hedgehog had Eggman not only pull off a siege on Knothole, he razed it to the ground.

Dutch movie Kenau shows the siege of Harlem by the Spanish in 1572-1573, and its defense by the city's women.

John Woo's The Killer features one of these as its final shootout, with the title character and his Cowboy Cop ally defending the Killer's last place of sanctuary, a church, against a virtual army of assassins sent by his ex-boss to murder them all.

Kolberg: A Nazi propaganda film from 1945 (yes, 1945) about the Real Life siege of Kolberg by Napoleon's army in 1806-7. Meant to inspire Germans to resist the Russians who were invading their country as the film was being finished.

World War I movie The Lost Patrol shows a particularly grim small-scale version, as the men of the patrol are trapped inside the oasis, being picked off one at a time by the Arabs surrounding them outside.

Defied in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. Several of the pirate lords advocate hiding in their fortress when the East India Company comes calling; said fort is supplied for a several-month siege. Jack points out that they could do that, but half the fort's inhabitants would be dead in a month due to cabin fever-induced civil war.

Red Cliff, also by John Woo, is based on the historical siege of a river fortress during the China's Three Kingdoms period.

Saving Private Ryan: Uses this trope in the climax. When Miller's squad find Ryan, he refuses to abandon his mission to hold a strategically vital river crossing for the Allied invasion, in spite of the airborne troops on the location lacking leadership and being outnumbered and outgunned by advancing German forces. Miller decides to lead the defense and let his men join the action not because the bridge is their responsibility, but so that they can ultimately bring Ryan home.

Scarface (1983) ends with a siege by assassins working for Alejandro Sosa against Tony Montana's mansion, which doesn't really get going until Tony takes up an M-16 with a grenade launcher with a cry of "Say hello to my little friend!"

Siege is a harrowing documentary short filmed inside Warsaw during the German siege of September 1939.

Skyfall climaxes with Bond and two others (Kinkade, M) defending a manor home against more numerous and better-armed villains. Defenders' advantage allows the MI-6 contingent to hold out against 10-to-1 odds, but they technically still lose because the Big Bad is able to achieve his mission objective (killing M)—or, at best, stalemate, since Bond kills him right after. (Also, the home gets blown up.)

Small Soldiers had a siege near the end, with lots of antagonistic action figures attacking a house.

Disney's Swiss Family Robinson has a fairly epic one, which is one of the biggest differences from the original book.

The Siege, usually involving a Town Boss being held in a city jail, was the climactic event of four John Wayne movies, including Rio Bravo, El Dorado, The Sons of Katie Elder, and Rio Lobo. Apparently Duke liked this story line even more than he liked stalking and spanking beautiful women (three different movies!).

The Last Jedi has a siege as one of the primary narrative threads. The Resistance capital ships are under attack from the First Order with limited fuel, and their deflector shields can only hold off the First Order for so long. The siege continues and climaxes on the planet Crait, where the final pocket of surviving Resistance members are in a base under siege by First Order walkers and a battering-ram cannon.

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Also during the War of the Ring, the dwarves of Erebor and the men of Laketown held the Lonely Mountain during a lengthy seige that tied up Sauron's northern armies for much of the war.

The Silmarillion features the Siege of Gondolin, except unlike the above examples, Morgoth's forces succeed in taking the city, with only a remnant of its population escaping.

Also shows up in The Hobbit when Thorin and his band are holed up inside the Lonely Mountain as the armies of Laketown and the Wood Elves try to get in to claim the treasure.

Dan Abnett's entire Warhammer 40,000: Gaunt's Ghosts novel Necropolis is one prolonged siege battle, with the Chaos-corrupted hive city Ferrozoica hurling their entire population at the much larger but much less-militarized hive city Vervunhive. Think Minas Tirith, but with tanks and a good hundred times the manpower. It occurs again in Sabbat Martyr, with Gaunt explicitly comparing and contrasting the two situations, noting that this second time around the "good guys" were even worse off.

Also in the game background the Ultramarines' defence of their polar fortress againt the Tyranids that had invaded their home planet. Most of their 1st company died holding the place untill the Imperial Navy could drive off the Hive Fleet by having a battleship perform a Heroic Sacrifice and explode it's warp core right in the middle of the fleet.

The entirety of Storm of Iron, which features Iron Warriors attacking a seemingly pointless fort on an ugly planet that closely resembles the arse end of nowhere. It's a gene-seed repository, one of the most important places in the entire Imperium. And The Bad Guy Wins. You can panic now.

The three main engagements in the Horus Heresy novel "Angel Exterminatus" boil down to "Iron Warriors do what they do best" - it opens with them cracking open an Imperial Fists fortress, moves on to a cross between this and a Boarding Party, and finalises with an Iron Warrior and Emperor's Children mixed force on an Eldar crone world attempting to set up siege lines...only for the situation to reverse when the wraithguard walk.

Noticeably averted in War and Peace. Kutuzov abandons Moscow despite everyone on his staff and his emperor demanding that he hold Moscow against a siege.

A mainstay of Henryk Sienkiewicz's ''Trilogy'', set in the 17th century Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Each of the books in the trilogy has a climactic siege featuring the defenders fighting against great odds.

Rogue Male: for a large part of the story, the hero is besieged alone in his hideout, which has gone from a refuge to a hellish trap.

The climax of the entire Harry Potter series takes place in the last third or so of Deathly Hallows, when Voldemort and his Death Eaters storm Hogwarts itself.

In the book Azincourt by Bernard Cornwell it goes into great detail over the siege of Harfleur. The siege is a shambles, the British end up with dysentery, the French keep rebuilding the walls and to top it all a ship gets past the blockade to resupply them. When King Henry V finally takes the small town he lost so many forces he can't possibly hope to defeat the French in open battle but to save face forces his men to march around France attempting to avoid their army...that doesn't work out so well.

Colas Breugnon has a siege described early in the novel. Even though a few people die, both sides come to an agreement after a few days and settle down to eat together. No one's very sore about the entire incident.

In Mistborn: The Well of Ascension the protagonists are besieged in Luthadel by three armies at once; the fact that the besieging armies are all working against each other is the only reason Luthadel lasts so long.

In Mistborn: The Hero of Ages, the good guys are the ones doing the besieging, until the Big Bad's army shows up and the besiegers and the besieged decide to team up.

Occurs several times in the Malazan Book of the Fallen, most notably the exceptionally one-sided siege of Capustan in Memories of Ice.

Defied in the first book of The Deed of Paksenarrion. Paks's unit is holding a fortress when another mercenary company shows up with siege engines. Paks's unit is not equipped or supplied for a siege (and the other side is a sometimes-allied business competitor, not some Army of Evil), so they surrender.

The main conflict in Redwall is a siege laid upon Redwall Abbey by a vicious one-eyed rat named Cluney the Scourge. Cluney's forces actually manage to get in and have to be thrashed afterwards.

There are many, many other sieges in the series, either against Redwall or the Badger Lord's fortress of Salamandastron.

The Reynard Cycle: The climax of The Baron of Maleperduys features a fairly spectacular one. Our heroes are hopelessly outnumbered and the bad guys have artillery in a world where castles are not built to withstand cannon fire. It ends when The Cavalry arrives, revealing that what had appeared to be a hopeless situation was actually a trap that Reynard set, using himself and his friends as living bait.

Part of the plot of Septimus Heap: Darke involves the Siege of the Wizard Tower by the Darke Domaine.

The novel features a siege in the climax of A Clash of Kings, the Battle of the Blackwater, with multiple chapters exploring the conflict from the perspective of the besiegers, the defenders, and the women in the castle who fear becoming victims of soldiers on either side.

One siege at Riverrun is entirely at a stalemate until Jaime comes and resolves the whole mess with a To the Pain speech about what will happen to the castle and its people if they don't surrender to the overwhelming numbers at their door.

Daenerys becomes fairly well acquainted with sieges throughout Slaver's Bay, having been on both sides of them.

One of the most memorable sieges in the series is in the back story, the famous Siege of Storm's End in which Stannis' men were nearly dying of starvation toward the end. This gave Davos his opportunity to become a main character by slipping past the naval blockade and smuggling food (most famously, lots of onions) into the castle.

Also famously averted in the back story as well. The incident which first made Tywin Lannister infamous was a series of battles with defiant lords who had been used to the Lannisters being an Puppet Lords and having things their own way. In one of the battles, with the Reynes of Castamere, the Reynes and their garrison retreated into a series of mines, knowing that the Lannisters would suffer unthinkable casualties trying to storm the narrow mines and weren't equipped for a siege, so they thought they could outwait the Lannisters. Instead Tywin ordered the exits of the mines sealed and diverted a local river to flow into the mines. No need for a siege if every single man, woman, and child of your enemies has drowned in the darkness.

In the backstory to Warrior Cats, SkyClan had to endure this. Forced out of their home, they found a gorge and settled down in it. However, a massive horde of rats surrounded them, just waiting for them to try to leave the get some food, take a nap outside the gorge, or something of the sort. When a cat left, they were swarmed by rats and killed. It was enough to drive a cat mad, and led to the end of SkyClan. However, the cats get the last laugh, as the rebuilt SkyClan drives a group of rats under a pile of garbage, surrounds it and waits for them to try to escape, then kills them as they leave.

Late in Freedom anti-Daemon mercenaries carry out one against a Daemon community.

There are two major sieges in the latter part of The Wheel of Time: Caemlyn, as part of a Succession Crisis, and Tar Valon, the result of a schism between the Aes Sedai. There is also a siege on the fortress known as the Stone of Tear, but its impact on the plot is minimal.

In Christian Nation, the American theocratic government under the leadership of President Steve Jordan laid siege against the last holdouts of Constitutional democracy and freedom by cutting off all aid to Manhattan Island, where they were all located. The President even goes so far as to declare Deuteronomy 20:10-12 as "justifiable grounds" for it.

In the backstory of the Belgariad, the armies of Kal Torak besieged the Algarian Stronghold for six years without any success, eventually giving up to move on to Arendia, where it was destroyed at Vo Mimbre. The main reason why this happened was because the Stronghold wasn't so much a city as it was a man-made rock in the middle of nowhere that the Algarians built so that invading armies would have something to try to besiege instead of wandering aimlessly around the plains.

The first book of The Traitor Son Cycle centers around two sieges - first, of the city of Albinkirk and, after Albinkirk falls, of the Lissen Carak convent.

Live-Action TV

Most TV series set in war zones, and many western series, eventually use this plot.

24: At one point in Season 4, Jack Bauer and three civilians must hold a sporting goods store against a squad of heavily-armed commandos until help arrives.

"The Base Under Siege" is a standard Doctor Who plot ("Moon base, sea base, space base, they build these things out of kits!"), especially in Pat Troughton stories, such as "The Wheel in Space".

"The Ark in Space" is something of a Deconstruction of the Troughton style of doing it. Yes, there's a multidisciplinary team of scientists doing very important things! ...because they're amongst the only humans being sent off the Earth before its destruction. Yes, something terrible is trying to get in! ...except the base had a security system specifically built to prevent that sort of nonsense which killed it as soon as it actually did get in, meaning the main threat is actually a member of the base personnel who got contaminated with its genetic material and is transforming into one. Yes, the companion saves the day by running down a corridor! ...except she's the only person who can because she's the only person small enough to fit in the tunnel, and she gets stuck, and panics until the Doctor bullies her into pulling herself together.

"World War Three": In a small-scale example, the Doctor, Rose and Harriet Jones (MP, Flydale North) barricade themselves inside the Cabinet room in 10 Downing Street, which has steel-reinforced walls, after they are surrounded by the Slitheen. The siege is broken when the Doctor, over the telephone, instructs Mickey to launch a missile into the building, killing the Slitheen. The Doctor, Rose and Harriet survive by taking shelter in the closet, and are able to walk out afterwards.

"The Parting of the Ways", though it was slightly subverted in that the good guys did not actually end up holding off the evil Daleks, and by the end of the episode, every main and minor character, with the exception of Rose Tyler, was dead. Two getbetter.

"The Waters of Mars" subverts a number of conventions in this regard, resulting in a dark and unsettling story all round.

Preacher Jesse Custer spends most of the episode "El Valero" holed up in his church, holding off the personal army of Odin Quincannon, who wants to force Jesse to sign over the deed to his land. Since Jesse is a Retired Badass and One-Man Army, he has no problem fighting them all off until he gets too weary of the fighting and lets Odin's Dragon, Donnie, capture him.

Stargate Atlantis: The first-season finale, named appropriately enough "The Siege", shows the main characters defending Atlantis from a Wraith assault.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: "The Siege" (natch), "Way of the Warrior", and others. Since the setting was a station, this was a natural plot idea. Speaking of which...

"Siege of AR-558" (not to be confused with the above episode) is particularly gruesome.

Until you do the math and realize that the Federation troops suffered on average less than one casualty a day from randomly blundering around in the minefield and repeated Jem'Hadar attacks.

The Supernatural episode "Jus In Bello" brings the trope into play as Sam and Dean are arrested and the police station where they're being held comes under attack be demons led by Lilith. They wind up forging an alliance with the FBI agent who wanted to put them away forever.

The end of the third season of Vikings features the Norse besieging Paris. At first they attempt to Storm the City, but are beaten back. After that fails they settle in to starve out the city or make other attempts to breach the defenses, like trying to slip into the city during the night and open the gates. All these attempts fail, but disease and hunger do start running rampant in the city as a result of the siege, until eventually the Franks attempt to pay the Norse army to lift the siege and leave.

One specialty of the Imperial Fists Space Marines in Warhammer 40,000 is holding the line in sieges. Not coincidentally, the specialty of their arch-enemies, the Iron Warriors, is launching them.

In the Horus Hersey the Chaos Space Marines lay siege to Terra, and the Emperor along with his remaining forces were are forced to drive them off with all they have. The Imperial forces have been driven off the Chaos forces, and killed Horus, but at a terrible price, Sanguinius has been slain, and the Emperor is in a near death state, and is locked in life support in the golden throne.

Several attempts were made in the golden age of table top wargaming to make siege games. The problem was that there is little maneuver in siege warfare and the most interesting parts are the gadgeteering which doesn't translate well. Some did manage to become classics like Avalon Hill's Siege of Alessia

In Checkers during an end game, if the vanquished player is stubborn about it, he can retreat to a double corner. It needs a carefully choreographed sequence of moves to dig him out and is rather like a siege.

The old Norse game Hnefatafl simulates an escape from a besieged fortress, as opposed to a pitched battle(like Chess).

Special mention goes to the original PlanetSide. Bases used a resource called Nanites to allow infantry to spawn, and to produce weapons and vehicles for troops. This resource was finite, and had to be resupplied by driving a specialized Nanite Transport vehicle to a gate, collecting nanites, and bringing them back. If the base ran out of nanites, it would immediately go neutral, terminals stopped working, spawning was stopped, and base defenses went offline. In this manner, if your force wasn't strong enough to defeat the entrenched defenders, it was possible to lay siege to them until they eventually "starved" themselves of resources and fell from within.

Happens in Neverwinter Nights 2 when the hero's castle is besieged by the undead army of the King of Shadows. The already problematic odds take a turn for the worse when one of the hero's companions turns out to have betrayed them by sabotaging the gate and when the undead, including the vampires, turn out to be unaffected by sunlight.

Mass Effect 2: Garrus' recruitment mission and Grunt's loyalty mission both consist of three or four heroes holding a somewhat defensible position against a horde of mercenaries/alien monsters, followed by a Background Boss. Legion's loyalty mission is a sort-of Tower Defense scenario.

Urban Dead: The game revolves around humans building barricades inside buildings and zombies trying to break in. Most famous is probably Second Siege of Caiger Mall, going for three real life months.

Goblin sieges in Dwarf Fortress; more rarely, human and elven sieges. If all the resources you rely on are subterranean (water, magma, farmlands, wood, ores,) a virulent forgotten beast can effect a siege from below.

In the PS3 and 360 versions of the first The Godfather game, a slew of Cuneos assault the Corleone compound, and your job is to hold the fort with your fellow mobsters. These become more common in the sequel since enemies can now randomly raid your fronts.

Happens to your castle at the end of Dragon Age: Origins  Awakening. Depending on your administrative decisions during the campaign, if you stay to protect the city instead of returning to defend the castle, it can be either a Last Stand for the defenders, or a successful repulse of the siege.

Crossed with Delaying Action in the third Terran mission of StarCraft I: you have to hold your fort against repeated Zerg attacks until dropships arrive to evacuate your troops.

Act V of Diablo II has you battling the forces of Hell which are pounding on the gates of Harrogath and pursuing Baal as he seeks the Worldstone.

Act III of Diablo III has you defending Bastion's Keep near the crater of Mount Arreat against a full-on demonic onslaught by the forces of Azmodan.

Happens a lot in pretty much every installment of Fire Emblem, defending for a certain number of turns in some levels and seizing castles in the siege missions.

During the Cataclym expansion of World of Warcraft, the Dragon Soul raid is this. All of the Twilight's Hammer and the Black Dragonflight are bringing their forces to tear down the Wyrmrest Temple and bring the Hour of Twilight. It's up to you and 9/24 other heroes to not only stop that from happening, but finally put an end to Deathwing.

The Scorge's attempt to attack Light's Hope Chapel in the Wrath of the Lich King expansion was similar, only that siege was thwarted after Tirion showed up and casued all the forces to either become good or die.

A few missions in Guild Wars are based around these (Dzagonur Bastion, Thunderhead Keep, Eternal Grove, Genius Operated Living Enchanted Manifestation.)

Final Fantasy XIV has "The Steps of Faith", the last trial in the 2.0 main scenario questline. Players are tasked with defeating the dragon Vishap before it can break through Ishgard's last line of defense, fending off its draconian hoards in the process.

Jak II: Haven City, such as it is, has been under siege by the Metal Heads for hundreds of years, and is believed to be the only city left on the entire planet, making it humanity's last hope. Pity that the Baron's plan to defeat them would also destroy the entire universe.

In the next game, [[Jak 3: Wastelander, the Freedom League are under siege by Krimzon Guard robots and Metal Heads, and later, Spargus comes under siege from the Dark Makers - it's an interesting change, because in Haven the civilians would run and scream when confronted with enemies, while in Spargus there's no town guard because everyone is armed.

There's one of these in every main God of War Series game. The first game's plot revolves around Ares, the Greek God of War, besieging Athens. The second game starts off with Kratos, in his new role as God of War after killing Ares, besieging Rhodes. The third game is a siege of Mount Olympus as Kratos and the Titans aim to overthrow the gods.

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In The Order of the Stick, Azure City, a bastion of good partially ruled under the watch of paladins, is attacked by a massive army of hobgoblins led by Redcloak, an evil goblin cleric and Xykon, an evil human lich sorcerer. The protagonists find themselves defending the city alongside the paladins. The good guys actually lose with heavy casualties, including the leader of the protagonists. A very, very long arc was dedicated to the fallout of the battle, including the only recent resurrection of said leader.

In The Senkari the titular force has to hold off an overwhelming force of Daemonic infantry in a final stand.

Due to the high casualty rate that came from assaulting a city or a castle...it was generally understood that those men who survived would be free to do whatever they wanted to the civilian population...it was generally understood that it was almost impossible for a general to prevent his army from committing massacres in the event of a successful assault...Even a generals as feared and respected as Sir Arthur Wellesley, the future Duke of Wellington, found it impossible to control his army following the successful assault on Badajoz, leading to the death of thousands of civilians at the hands of a "pack of hell hounds vomited up from infernal regions for the extirpation of mankind."

On that note, Ba Sing Se itself. While the Fire Nation has made more serious efforts on occasion, the city has been under more or less constant siege for a very long time, which is why it's completely self sufficient (having a large agrarian zone inside the wall capable of supporting the entire city). This is additionally supported by the presence of Fire Navy ships in territorial waters near the city, implying that outside the city itself the Fire Nation essentially has free reign. And one has to wonder why there's no sign of plant or animal life outside the wall whatsoever, considering that the fire nation has been known to burn down villages and forests...

This trope is a case of Truth in Television. Sieges have been and (to some degree) remain a common military strategy. Modern infantry tactics favor going around strong points in the defense and let rear-echelon troops deal with them later, but sometimes there is no going around a well-placed defensive positionnote one example is from the Battle of the Bulge: the Germans' intentions were to quickly penetrate the American lines without stopping, but to be able to use the roads they had to take Bastogne (which they proved unable to do). A good number of movies and television programs base their siege plots on real life sieges like Leningrad and the Alamo. These are well-remembered by a (defending) nation's population if their people either won the siege by successfully holding their position against an overwhelming enemy or (more commonly) lost gloriously.

The dominant form of European warfare until well into the 19th century, and indeed beyond if one includes WWI. Reached it's apogee after proper siege cannon made tall, thin stone walls like those that protected medieval castles obsolete, and European states transitioned to the trace italienne. With low, thick, angled bastions almost impervious to cannon fire, and capable of laying down whithering overlapping fields of fire, the new star forts were almost impossible to assault at will. Instead, attackers had to dig entrenchments parallel to the thinner curtain wall they intended to breach, alternating between zig-zagging trenches and straight, parallel ones for the cannons to lay down suppressive fire, inching forward for months in this leapfrogging pattern. Furthermore, the looming possibility of a relief force meant that the attackers needed to construct their own fortifications to protect them while they reduced the besieged fortress. This led to sieges within sieges as the attacker found himself defending fortifications against one enemy force while preparing to assault the garrison. Even when the curtain wall was breached, attackers might hesitate; if the bastions were still intact, the assault force would be subject to overlapping fields of fire from inside the fort and from bastions on both flanks. Well over half many states' budgets went to constructing fortifications in the new style, and that was with much of the costs being borne by the city that was being fortified. Dramatic victories on the battlefield were no longer enough to decide a war while the enemy still held their fortresses; there's a reason the Dutch war for independence is called the Eighty Years War.

Soviet military forces actually made superhuman efforts to deliver some foodstuffs by boat in summer or trucks over the ice during winter. But as the entire city's infrastructure was destroyed or inoperable, even for the little food which could be delivered, people had to walk for many miles in temperatures as low as -30°C. After weeks of back-breaking labor in the cold. For many it was a one-way trip.

Back in 134 BC, the Iberian hillfort of Numantia, in today's Spain, held off a siege by the Roman Army for 13 months. In the end, the surviving defenders chose to suicide rather than be killed or captured by the Romans. To this day, the Spanish language has the adjective/noun numantino, meaning "he who tenaciously resists to the limit, often on precarious conditions."

The fortress of Masada in Israel topped that, holding out against the Romans for three years before choosing mass suicide. It helped that Masada's position on top of a mountain with a single easily-defended way in made the fortress effectively impossible to take with military strength alone... At least until the Romans were finished building their mountain-sized siege ramp.

With the Romans as defenders, the Second Punic War offers us Placentia and Cremona: two recently founded coloniae, thus still fortified outposts in recently conquered territory with a large civilian population to show off the benefits of being Romans, they found themselves almost immediately besieged by the Gauls that had risen in arms after Hannibal's invasion. The sieges were notable for enduring longer than the war: Placentia fell in 200 BC, two years after Carthage had surrendered to Rome, and Cremona resisted until the Romans destroyed the Gaulish revolt under its walls.

During Spain's War of Independence, the city of Saragossa suffered TWO sieges by the French Army. The first (1808) ended with a Spanish victory; The second one (1809), historically noted for its brutality, ended with a French victory. Saragossa was reduced to 12,000 people from its pre-second siege population of 100,000.

The battle of Alesia was a strange example: Julius Caesar's army was besieging the city as it was the last stronghold of Vercingetorix (the last Gaulish leader against Rome), but was in turn besieged by a Gaulish relief force. The battle happened when the Gaulish relief force tried to break the Roman siege and the Alesia garrison sortied, but resulted in Caesar beating back the sortie and near-annihilating the relief force (the annihilation wasn't total only because the Romans were too tired to pursue them), causing Vercingetorix to surrender before the Romans broke in and exterminated everyone.

Lasting almost four years, The Siege of Sarajevo was the longest siege in modern warfare. It was part of the breakup of Yugoslavia, and began when, after Bosnia declared independence from Yugoslavia, Serbian forces surrounded the city in an attempt to make a new Bosnian-Serb state, which the Bosnians were none too happy about. The end result was nearly 12,000 dead, and a city forever scarred.

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